Darren's Occasional Nugget 03/20/2008

[Darren]

It was brought to my attention recently that one of my favorite little LabVIEW tricks has yet to be nuggetized.  You know how if you right-click in the diagram to bring up a temporary palette, you can pick a subVI off the palette to drop it?  Well, if you instead Ctrl right-click to bring up the palette, whenever you pick the subVI, instead of putting it on your cursor to drop, it opens the subVI front panel instead.  Isn't that neat?

-D

P.S. - Check out past nuggets here.

[PaulG.]

That is kind of neat. Anything that reduces mouse clicks is useful.

[sth]

Ok, great tip to reduce mouse clicks. Now how do you do that on the Mac where a "right click" is already a control click?

I have tried Command-right click (the obvious mapping), shift-right click, and option-right click but it doesn't seem to work. Any other things to try?

[Darren]

This nugget works on Windows and Linux, but not on Mac.  Let me know when you guys get a second mouse button and we'll talk.

-D

[johnsold]

On a pinned palette on the Mac control-click will bring up a menu, which includes Open VI. However that does not really save much time unless you want to open several VIs from the same palette.

Lynn

[sth]

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@Darren wrote:
This nugget works on Windows and Linux, but not on Mac.  Let me know when you guys get a second mouse button and we'll talk.

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Darren,

You are behind the times. I got two buttons on my mouse and have had for years. I used a 5 button trackball for years before then. And a 3 button mouse trackball back on OS 8 in the early 90s. I already got the two buttons on the mouse.
http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/
So lets start talking? 🙂

BTW, the nice rollerball on that mouse is great for scrolling both vertically and horizontally in a diagram or front panel! Since it is USB it might even work with your PeeCee!

Of course, since Labview doesn't work well with Leopard (OS X 10.5) anyway.....
-Scott

[Darren]

I talked to one of our Mac guys, and I tried this out myself on a Mac here with a two button mouse.  As you already mentioned, right-clicking on that mouse does exactly the same thing as ctrl-left clicking (I guess there's some sort of internal mapping going on?).  So it's not *really* treated like a different mouse button click...it's treated like a modified click of the single button.  So again, once y'all get a *real* second mouse button, we'll talk.  😉

-D

[MathieuSteiner]

Another good tip !
Thanks for sharing

[sth]

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@Darren wrote:

As you already mentioned, right-clicking on that mouse does exactly the same thing as ctrl-left clicking (I guess there's some sort of internal mapping going on?).  So it's not *really* treated like a different mouse button click...it's treated like a modified click of the single button.  So again, once y'all get a *real* second mouse button, we'll talk.  😉

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Darren,
I honestly, all joking aside, don't see the real problem, other than the normal dismissiveness of uni-OS folks. On the Windows side, you use the control key for everything we (i.e. mac users) use the "command key" for (also know variously as Apple Key, or Clover). So if I use control-click to be a right click what is the big diff? The command key should map to what you call a control key.

So, command-control-click should map to this function. That is equivalent to command-right click, which maps on the normal
command <-> control mapping. The control-click is a system mapping to "secondary button". There is a logical consistent mapping to a unique user interaction.

Tomorrows lesson is the option/meta key and emacs mappings..... 😉

[parthabe]

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Darren wrote:

Well, if you instead Ctrl right-click to bring up the palette, whenever you pick the subVI, instead of putting it on your cursor to drop, it opens the subVI front panel instead.

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Not necessarily only any SubVI, also any openable VI from the Functions pallete.

Thanks, Darren!